Bangkok Post – Years later, the Philippines is coming to terms with Duterte’s brutal drug war

MANILA, Philippines — When Rodrigo Duterte ran for president eight years ago, he vowed he would order police and military to find and kill drug users and dealers, and promised immunity for such killings. In the months that followed, police and vigilante groups mercilessly shot tens of thousands of people in summary executions.

Even now, two years after Duterte’s departure, the wave of murders has received little legal attention: only eight police officers have been sentenced to prison in just four cases, with one verdict coming just this month. And although human rights groups say there have been fewer such murders since Duterte’s departure, and far fewer of them have been committed by government officials, a culture of violence and impunity is disturbingly widespread in the Philippines.

In recent months, the legacy of Duterte’s so-called war on drugs has slowly begun to attract more official attention, with lawmakers holding several public hearings on the violence. The congressional hearing featured senior police officials, as well as relatives of the victims, reliving their horrors and renewed pleas for justice.

When Duterte left office, his government said 6,252 people had been killed by security forces – all described by authorities as “drug suspects.” Human rights groups estimate the total death toll to be around 30,000.

Duterte is unlikely to face any consequences from the congressional hearings. He was asked to testify before the panel last week, but a spokesman declined, citing his constitutional right not to testify. Many are now looking abroad, to the International Criminal Court, which is investigating the drug war and is expected to take action against Duterte soon.

Reymie Bayunon’s seven-year-old son, Jefferson, was shot dead in Caloocan city in April 2019 after Bayunon said he witnessed a murder in their neighborhood. She sued the police but said she stayed away from court hearings after being threatened by a group of police officers.

Bayunon has a simple message for the Philippine authorities: “I urge you to cooperate with the ICC because this is our only chance to get justice,” she said.

Although Duterte has taken full responsibility for the drug war, he has always said he would never face an international court. He said there were three million drug addicts in the Philippines and added: “I would like to slaughter them.”

Six years ago, he ordered the Philippines to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, which has refused to comment on its investigations into Duterte. It remains unclear whether the Philippine government would force Duterte to surrender if he faced an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. The court cannot try defendants in absentia.

Duterte’s successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., at times appeared to backtrack on an earlier promise to shield him from an international investigation. In December, Marcos’s government allowed ICC officials investigating Duterte to enter the Philippines so they could continue their work, according to an official familiar with the matter.

Among the cases the ICC is expected to pursue is another complaint against police in Caloocan, north of Manila. Less than three months after Duterte took office in 2016, a group of police stormed the tiny apartment of Mary Ann Domingo and escorted most of the family out.

The last time she saw her partner, Luis Bonifacio, alive, he was kneeling on the ground with his arms raised. Her son Gabriel, 19, stayed inside to plead for his father’s life and was also shot. Domingo later saw their bodies in the hospital.

Since 2017, she has been pursuing a complaint against the officials with the national ombudsman.

On June 18, a judge ruled that the four police officers involved in the operation were guilty of murder.

The court heard the results of a forensic pathologist who examined the Bonifacio family’s remains. The pathologist, Dr. Raquel Fortun, told the court she found multiple gunshot wounds.

As the verdict was read, Domingo cried on the shoulder of one of her sons. The four officers stood next to her, looking at the ground.

“I am grateful to the judge because I feel that justice can finally be done,” Domingo said after the verdict. But she added: “The ICC is still needed because we need justice for every victim of the drug war.”

Mary Ann Domingo hugs family members of other drug war victims after four police officers were found guilty of murdering her partner and son in Caloocan, Philippines, on June 18, 2024. (Ezra Acayan/The New York Times)

In the background are tensions between Duterte and Marcos. The current president came to power after forging an alliance with Duterte’s daughter Sara. But in the months since, everything has changed. This month, Sara Duterte resigned from her post as education secretary in Marcos’ cabinet. Marcos and his allies, the Dutertes claim without evidence, want the president to expand his powers by amending the constitution. The two men have traded barbs over each other’s drug use.

Duterte has burnished his reputation as a law-and-order politician as mayor of Davao, a city in the south of the country. Hundreds of people have been killed there, presumably by armed men with links to the authorities; these crimes are also being investigated by the International Criminal Court.

Within days of Duterte taking office, people like Vincent Go, a freelance journalist, noticed a change. Go, who worked nights in the Manila area, received reports of ten to twenty crime scenes every night – an astronomical increase in violence. Go saw the same scenes over and over again: dead ends, often without surveillance cameras or witnesses. Rusty weapons were often found next to the bodies.

The government’s narrative in such cases was almost always the same: the suspected drug users were about to be arrested, resisted, and officers had to shoot in self-defense.

Go documented over 900 crime scenes during Duterte’s presidency. He shared photos of bodies with handcuff marks and others with numerous gunshot wounds. He pointed to one and said, “He was shot five times in the head.”

“How can someone who is resisting be shot five times in the head?” said Go.

Fortun examined 109 bodies exhumed at the behest of a Catholic priest, the Rev. Flaviano Villanueva, and the victims’ families. She said she saw multiple, repeated gunshot wounds to the head and torso.

“In other words, they were shot to be killed,” said Fortun, the only pathologist in the Philippines who has examined the remains of those killed in the drug war.

During Duterte’s election campaign, tens of thousands of people were arrested for drug-related offenses. He had promised to crack down on drug lords and other high-ranking dealers. But among the dead, human rights groups say, were many poor men and working-class boys.

The Duterte camp has reiterated that the ICC has no jurisdiction in the Philippines because the prosecutor only launched his investigation after Duterte withdrew his country from the treaty that created the court in 2019. Marcos’ views are unclear: in November he said he was considering rejoining the court, but in March he reiterated that the ICC has no jurisdiction over his country.

“The remedy for alleged victims is to file their complaints in Philippine courts,” said Duterte’s former spokesman Harry Roque.

On a recent Thursday, Fortun tried to find out what might have happened to Jay-Ar Jumola, a 21-year-old construction worker who was killed by unidentified men in an alley in Navotas City in June 2019.

She pointed to a hole in Jumola’s skull and said, “That indicates a bullet wound. I also notice this discoloration, the green discoloration on the inside of the skull. It indicates oxidation by something metallic.”

Photographer Go reported on Jumola’s death and tracked down a witness who told him that Jumola was on his knees when he was shot.

“He saw the blood pouring out and Jay-Ar begging for his life,” Go said. “And the police didn’t care and just shot him.”

Two of Jumola’s half-brothers suffered a similar fate. In February 2017, 23-year-old Anthony Ocdin was also killed by unidentified assailants in Navotas. He was found with duct tape around his head and a sign on his body that read: “Don’t imitate me, I’m a drug dealer.” Almost five years later, 28-year-old Angelo Ocdin was shot in the back by four men in Manila’s Tondo district.

Cristina Jumola said she was now afraid for her surviving children.

About Duterte, she said: “We want him to go to prison because he ordered the murder of innocent people.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.